Fernando Alonso has taken over from Mark Webber and was fastest in the second free practice. He was leading Hamilton, Vettel, Schumacher and Massa.

At the start of the second session conditions were similar to those in the morning session. The majority of drivers went out immediately. It was Massa who lead in the opening minutes with a 1:40.857. His teammate Fernando Alonso joined him on top with a 1:40.492. Only two drivers failed to set a lap after 15 minutes: Jaime Alguersuari and Paul di Resta. Di Resta's car suffered damage in the morning session when Nico Hulkenberg crashed the Force India in the wall under braking. Jaime Alguersuari also had technical issues and told reporters that he wouldn't be driving in the session.

Half an hour into the session it was Vettel who took the lead with a lap of 1:39.790. The German didn't show himself at the front in the first session. His teammate was just .002 second behind him and Alonso only two tenths of a second. Pastor Maldonado was the first to try out the soft tyres and was fourth with a 1:40.301. Times didn't drop significantly until the top drivers changed their tyres to the yellow soft tyres.

In the last 30 minutes all top contenders fitted soft tyres. The times dropped almost 1.5 seconds when the option tyres were on the car. Alonso set the fastest time (1:37.968) and was in front of Hamilton, Vettel, Schumacher and Massa. With just minutes to go engineers fixed Paul di Resta's car and he was able to do a couple of laps. The top drivers focused their last runs on race strategy and weren't attacking the fastest time anymore.